Sunday, 1 May 2016

I need my antidepressants to live. I need them to help me
get from day to day without crawling into a ball, crying continuously for no
reason and wondering if I should kill myself.

Woo yeah! Depression is soooooo fun.

I first started taking antidepressants in my first year of
university because I was struggling with anxiety and depression. My university
GP put me on 10mg of Citalopram and from that moment on I’ve taken a Citalopram
tablet every day. (Ok, that’s a bit of a lie but I’ll come back to that.)

So I’ve basically been on antidepressants for five years.
Which, in anyone’s book is a long time. When I think about it I suddenly go
“me? No way…it can’t have been five years.”

But it has and I honestly don’t think I would still be here,
five years later, if I didn’t take them.

They’re not fun to take. They make me lethargic, sometimes I
find my memory can be a little slow, I am very sensitive to loud noises and
bright lights and I guess they numb me a little; they stop me feeling such
intense emotions.

And I’m cool with that. I still feel happiness, sadness,
fear, anger, love, hate etc. but just re-calibrated to my new state of being.

In 2014 my life was fucking awesome. I had a job working in
a bookshop (the dream), I had a boyfriend, I was earning money, I was
independent, I could go out and do things and well, life was ace. So I went to
my GP and said “mate, I’m well happy. Can I come off of the antidepressants
because I don’t need them anymore?” He agreed and so I slowly, carefully and
with advice and monitoring reduced my dose over a period of a few months until
I was down to nothing. And then the shit hit the fan. Big time.

“HAHAHAHAHAHA LOL YOU TWAT.” Is basically what my brain said
to me. “You honestly think you can get through life without feeding me
antidepressants? I need them.”

My depression and anxiety reappeared at the speed of light.
I quit my job, became frightened of leaving the house and became completely
dependent on my family and boyfriend. Not really the sort of life you envisage for
yourself at 22.

I rushed back to the doctor and begged him to put me back on
the medication because it was clear I needed it. I’d foolishly thought that my
happiness and independence was all down to me being bad ass but it turns out it
was also aided by the medication keeping all them chemicals in ma brain working
as they should.

The doctor agreed that the best thing to do was to dose me
up again and stay on them for as long as I needed. I think I’ll need them for
life. And I don’t mind. They help me to live, to feel emotion that I otherwise
would be too numb to feel. They allow me to wake up every day and live a life
(ok, maybe not the life that I should be living, but a life nonetheless) and
they give me the chance to feel like myself.

I still have a long way to go until I’ve built up my
independence again and am less fearful of leaving the house but a lot of that
is down to psychological factors now rather than physiological factors.

I wish people weren’t so quick to judge those who find
medication a huge help. I know that antidepressants aren’t for everyone and I
don’t judge those who choose not to take them. It’s their personal choice, just
like it’s my choice to take them. And, as far as I’m currently aware, there are
no trials or studies that have proven there is anything wrong with taking
antidepressants over a long period of time. Plus even if they did, I don’t
think I’d stop taking them.

They allow me to live my best life and whilst it might not
be a life of daring adventures and fearless pursuits, it’s a life that I don’t
think I would still be living had I not been able to take them.